REPARO
by lucindamellark
Summary: What would the wizarding world we've come to love be like if Hogwarts was not just a school for witches and wizards, but specifically for witches and wizards with mental or physical illnesses? If Harry Potter had an incurable brain tumour named Voldemort, that could not kill him yet killed his parents? If all the characters had diseases, mental or physical?
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS FEATURED WITHIN THIS TEXT BELONG TO THE AUTHOR J.K. ROWLING, EXCEPT FOR SIGNATURE HELMS, AS WELL AS ANY REFERENCES TO LOCATIONS USED IN THE BOOKS OR BASICALLY ANYTHING IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES/SPINOFFS IS NOT MINE. What belongs to me, exclusively, is the writing and the idea. Judge it at your discretion (please don't be harsh).

ALSO, this is a work of fiction…the illnesses depicted are indeed real conditions that people courageously suffer with every day. However, the way that things play out with these illnesses has to relate to some aspects of the plot in Harry Potter. Therefore, the illnesses, while gruesome, will be treated to a certain extent with magic. Please respect this fictional work. IE. I understand that DIPG is solely a child's brain tumour, but for the purposes of this story, it can affect adults too. I'm not a doctor.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BOY WHO KIND OF LIVES.

I abruptly sat up in my bed, clutching my scar. Immediately a nurse rushed to my side to see what the issue was, but I just waved her away, lowering myself back onto the cushions and grasping at my forehead. It was a wonder as to why Voldemort decided to make an appearance now, as he typically came in the dead of night, unannounced, violently waking me up. But the tumour understood that there was some new treatment happening, and that caused it to somehow flee into the recesses of my mind and wait until I was weak enough to attack again. Voldemort knew when I was at my weakest, and it was only then that it was the most powerful.

I massaged my head, hoping that the pain would go away for a few hours as was sometimes the case. I have Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, a brain tumour that had tried to kill me when I was a baby and, at the same time, took the lives of both my parents whose genes were passed on to me. I call my tumour Voldemort because translated directly from the Latin it means 'flight of death', and that's what the brain tumour keeps doing. Evading chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, any form of treatment…and yet it's not killing me, so in a way I'm fleeing death too. The scar is from the single brain surgery I had that attempted to remove Voldemort and, while being somewhat successful, did not succeed in removing the entire tumour.

And that, I guess, is precisely why I'm here.

"Nurse Pomfrey, could you dim the lights please?" I said, wincing at the bright lights above my head.

"Of course, Harry," she replied, waving her wand and instantly lowering the lights.

I was a patient/somewhat of a student at the Hogwarts School and Treatment Centre for Witches and Wizards. During the days where Voldemort wasn't around as much, and I was able to think and live and behave like a proper kid without having the constant prospect of doom in my head, I was a student hoping to become an Auror, a wizard who catches and deals with the criminals of the wizarding world. However, about 75% of the time I'm in the same bed, undergoing different treatments to hopefully obliterate Voldemort from my life, but nothing has worked to kill it so far, only to make it significantly less powerful. The thing about DIPG is that no one has ever survived it before for over 3 months upon diagnosis…my parents, according to what my lousy Aunt Petunia tells me, died because of Voldemort about less than a day after their diagnosis, and for some reason I was spared. I was just a baby then, and all I remember of my mom and dad is a loud, ringing beeping noise and a flashing green light as the magical doctors tried to restart their hearts with a myriad of spells, along with the unforgettable image of my mom, beautiful even in her last gruesome moments, lightly touching my hand before falling to the floor, dead. If they had known that the disease was in their genetics, I wonder if they would have had me.

The room around me is lined with hospital beds, only a few of them occupied at the moment. All of the people who attend Hogwarts are under the age of 18 and suffer from a mental or physical illness, every single one of them. They are the only thing that magic cannot cure, because these illnesses grow inside of us and neither wizards nor witches can figure out how to kill something inside of us without killing us as a whole, and so we live with them. For a vast majority of the students, only the professors/the nurses know what it is they're dealing with, but all the students here operate under the assumption that everyone else is dealing with something we don't know about, and because of that there's a certain element of respect. But it only goes so far.

On that note, none other than Draco Malfoy strides into the hospital wing, sneering at me.

"My, my, look what we have here. If it isn't Harry Cancer," he says, approaching my bed, "and how are we today?"

In response to that I take my wand and spray him with water, something I often do in the night when my temperature goes too high, and yet in this case it's more effective. He dries himself with his wand, glaring at me and walking over to the nearest nurse, who takes him into a separate room and watches him while he eats.

You see, Draco Malfoy is anorexic. Under normal circumstances I would try and be more sympathetic and potentially more kind, even though brain tumours sometimes turn people into assholes. But Draco is different. He comes from a very wealthy family that had showered him with such privilege and opulence that he began to grow bored, instead closely monitoring how much food he ate under the non-watchful eyes of his parents, who were too busy to constantly watch his every move. When his weight dropped to a whopping 70 pounds at 5'5 and a half three years ago, when he and I were both around 12, he was sent here to recover, and hasn't since. Although I would never admit it to him, he is making progress, with a face that once paralleled a human skeleton now looking slightly more healthy. We've been cautioned against saying things like that to statients (the word for student/patients here) who have Eating Disorders, as those types of comments often send them spiralling back to frighteningly low weights.

As he leaves the room without thanking the nurse, I get a glimpse of his features under bright lighting. He has incredibly pale, almost white hair, noticeably thicker than a few months ago, when the Anorexia was causing his hair to fall out. He has a gaunt-looking face, with sharp yet hollow cheekbones, and grey eyes that, when looking at me are always reduced to slits, yet regularly are big and slightly protruding with an almost cartoonish effect for the rest of his face, as the disorder has made all his existing features look out of proportion. He's taller than he was all those years ago, but still just as much of a pain-in-the-ass as always.

"I'd tell you to feel better but I know you won't," he says as he walks past my bed while leaving the wing, pushing up his sleeves to reveal a small row of freshly healed scars. Decency holds me back from responding with a snide retort, and I once again slump back into the cushions. As Draco leaves the wing, he doesn't bother to hold the door open for the next patient.

This patient was a sight to wonder about. The procedure he had probably done on his right leg left him with a seemingly permanent limp that was virtually unnoticeable once you took in the rest of him. He has dirty blonde, incredibly messy hair that he, despite the disease within him, keeps neat and gelled to one side, with alarmingly green eyes and a single dimple whenever he smiled in his right cheek. He looked like some kind of war hero, visibly looking annoyingly perfect and probably admired by all, yet in a way, it seems like he's so out of reach that he may as well be merely a photograph.

Once he saw me, his face went from deadpan to astounded, shattering the illusion. I stared at the ground, knowing what was next.

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" he asked, stumbling over his words like an excited little kid. Just looking at him gave me a fresh pain on my forehead, causing me to grasp at the scar once more.

"Yes, and you are?" I responded, trying not to sound exasperated.

"Man. I didn't know you were here! The only survivor of the world's most evil and dark tumour is sitting next to me in a hospital wing!" he replied, not answering the question.

I just looked at him. "I wouldn't really say survivor," I said, gesturing to the tubes and pills beside me. "Unless you call this surviving."

"Of course! You're THE BOY WHO LIVED!" he exclaimed, smiling at me. "I'm Signature Helms, by the way. Osteosarcoma, but it's relatively stable. Nothing compared to yours, I don't think."

"One could say, The Boy Who Lived. I mean I guess. Signature, if you don't mind me asking, if your cancer is relatively stable, why are you here?" I ask, trying and failing to not sound annoyed.

He completely dismissed my tone. "I mean, I don't want to take any risks, living at home and doing nothing. I don't want any surprises with this nasty thing, even if I think it's gone for good. So I've come to study here…I'm just coming to meet the nurses, but if all goes well I'm mostly going to be here as a student. I know I'm starting later than most, but my parents wanted to make sure I was okay to leave home first."

I swallowed at the mention of his parents. I wondered, for a brief moment, what it would be like to have a set of parents/guardians who cared about me. "Well it was nice to meet you, Signature," I said, feigning exhaustion.

"It was an absolute honour meeting you, Harry! I'll definitely be seeing you around!" he replied, waving and walking towards to the nurses. As they led him into another room to check his vitals, he routinely glanced over at where I was sitting, shaking his head in awe each time. I wanted to puke for a reason that, just this once, wasn't related to my cancer.

I tried to focus on keeping my eyes closed and sleeping while the medicine tried its best to torment Voldemort but it was to no avail. I remained there, lying with my eyes closed as morning turned into late afternoon, as the nurses brought my next round of drugs to me, the unwilling patient.

I had only arrived here about a week ago, when an autistic quasi-wizard (his wand was confiscated for some reason I didn't know of yet) by the name of Rubeus Hagrid had come to see why I wasn't answering the letters that Hogwarts had been sending me for several months. The problem was that none of these letters ever found their way to me, always being intercepted by either my aunt Petunia or my morbidly obese uncle Vernon or cousin Dudley. While paying the absolute bare minimum to keep me alive, choosing the cheapest treatment possible, they did not want me going to Hogwarts where they feared I would discover my wizarding abilities and proceed to kill them all. Obviously I wouldn't kill them (cancer has you thinking of what comes after death, and I certainly didn't want the chief impediment to whatever lies in the next life to be the fact that I killed the Dursleys. Also, murder is wrong), but I was absolutely infuriated that they had kept my magical abilities from me for so long. Three years, to be exact.

So far, however, I had no friends. I hadn't really left the hospital wing since I arrived here, as Voldemort particularly didn't like Hogwarts and the pain he gave me was too much to eat with or go to class with, let alone socialize. So I sat in the cancer wing, occasionally reading but mostly sleeping, and always being woken up by some new student yelling in my face that I was Harry Potter. It was new, sure, I mean no one had cared about me before, but it was growing old really quickly.

As I finally fell asleep, despite the protests of Voldemort, I thought about how amazing it was to now be at Hogwarts, and it all went dark.

The next morning, I awoke to a pair of half-moon glasses peering at me from above. I jumped up from the cushions in surprise, reaching for my glasses to better see the figure above me. He looked incredibly old, with pale white hair and a very long, very white beard. Dressed in elegant robes, he waved his wand to produce a comfortable chair upon which he sat while continuing to stare at me. I felt disturbed. Strangely enough, though, in this unfamiliar man's presence, Voldemort seemed to be absent. Something about this man terrified the tumour inside of my head.

"Knock knock," he said.

"WHat," I replied, clearing my throat.

"Knock knock! You've never heard of knock knock jokes?"

"Of course I have. But who are you?" I asked.

"Answer the door."

"Fine. Who's there?"

"Lemon Meringue."

I stared at the empty bed beside me, as though to share in this man's insanity with a fellow patient. "Lemon Meringue who?"

"Lemon MeRANG the door, but no one answered!" he laughed, leaning back in his chair. I would have assumed that he'd escaped the psychiatric ward that dealt with statients who had mental disabilities, but Hogwarts only dealt with magical students under 18, which he was definitely not one of.

He paused. "Harry, I just made an attempt to lighten the mood. I think some laughter might be polite, considering you appear as though a dark cloud is permanently above your head."

I looked at him, deadpan. "Ha," I said. "Could you please tell me who you are, sir? Should I call a nurse?"

"That would be unnecessary," he replied. "My name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, or Professor Dumbledore for short. I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts School and Treatment Centre for Witches and Wizards. I hope you are well today."

I decided to refrain from telling him how it was in his presence that Voldemort seemed to cower in fear, saving it for another time when I knew this man better, so as to not scare him away. "Hello professor. I apologize for the rude greeting, I mean I didn't know you were-"

"Nonsense," he said, and I immediately stopped talking. "You're Harry Potter. Your reputation precedes you. Tell me, Harry, why were you such a poor correspondent? It seemed as though you didn't want to speak with me, nor did you wish to accept my invitation to join us here at Hogwarts. Why is that?"

"Sir, I never received a single one of your letters. Believe me, I would have jumped at the opportunity to come here, but my non-magic uncle and aunt kept taking the letters from the mail and all the other places they appeared, I mean I think some of them were inside of eggs according to my lunatic aunt, but they didn't want me to come here," I explained, "and it wasn't until the letters started flooding into the house from, like, all the openings everywhere that I knew something was up that they weren't telling me, I mean, obviously, letters were flying everywhere and there were owls surrounding my house and, being here in the magical world it all makes sense, but then when I thought magic wasn't real? I thought my pain medication was playing a trick on me, and then Hagrid showed up, and he was so nice and respectful and everything but my uncle and aunt refused to let me go, I mean, is this place free? I have no idea why they were like that, I think it's because my aunt hated my mom, now I think it was because my mom was magical and my aunt wasn't, but-"

"Harry. I understand the confusion, but I must correct you there. Your mother was one of two daughters born to the Evans family, and only one of them had magical capabilities that were in turn passed down to you. Lily was an astounding witch…one of the brightest of her age," he said, smiling and leaning back as though lost in some fond memory. "But Petunia is a Muggle, or a non-magical person, and it is my understanding from what Lily explained to me when she was here that Petunia was incredibly jealous of her, and that jealousy, unfortunately, was directed onto you once Lily tragically passed away 15 years ago. From the same tumour you have in that remarkable head of yours," he said, gesturing at my scar. "For some reason, you lived. Care to share your secrets, Harry?'

"Professor, if only I knew. I mean, I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense to me," I replied, sighing back into the cushions.

"All will be revealed in time, Harry. That is what's certain here at Hogwarts. The more you pursue something, the more likely you are to obtain it. Why, look at your parents. James pursued Lily so fervently that even we teachers gossiped about it. It's not one of my finer moments," he said, straightening his back, "Anyways, how are you feeling today, Harry? Do you believe yourself to be capable of attending the first day of classes?"

Using his wand, he produced a mirror. When I looked into it, I saw a 15 year old boy who seemed to permanently look like he was being chased by something ferocious. I tried to relax my expression, which helped. The scar at the top of my forehead while not incredibly large, in fact very small, was shaped like a lighting bolt and mostly healed. Whenever Voldemort was particularly active in my head, it shone bright red and hurt quite painfully. Now, it was a dull reddish brown. My eyes were green and I had messy, out-of-control brown hair that I kept permanently unkempt. Overall, I'd rate me like a 1/10, but speaking honestly I wasn't bad looking, and you couldn't tell I was sick thanks to the magic, but before Hogwarts I was completely bald and was just as gaunt as Draco. The reality of cancer in a non-magical world.

"Sir, I think I might be. Can I ask you one last question?"

"Of course, Harry."

"Why did you come and visit me?"

He stood up, and the chair underneath him magically disappeared. "You're a miracle, Harry. I fear that if I did not come to visit you, you would vanish once more into an area of this world where I could not find you, and I would have lost my chance."

"Why would I vanish, sir?"

"You said one question, Harry. But to say that you are not sought after by all the wizarding schools would be a nasty lie. I do not fancy myself liars," he said, ironing out his robes. "Please be changed and at the Great Hall within the next 30 minutes. And Harry?"

"Yes, professor?"

"Good luck today."


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS FEATURED WITHIN THIS TEXT BELONG TO THE AUTHOR J.K. ROWLING, EXCEPT SIGNATURE HELMS AS WELL AS ANY REFERENCES TO LOCATIONS USED IN THE BOOKS OR BASICALLY ANYTHING IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES/SPINOFFS IS NOT MINE. What belongs to me, exclusively, is the writing and the idea. Judge it at your discretion (please don't be harsh).**

 **ALSO, this is a work of fiction…the illnesses depicted are indeed real conditions that people courageously suffer with every day, who'ver the way that things play out with these illnesses has to relate to some aspects of the plot in Harry Potter.**

CHAPTER 2: I'm Sorry, It's Not Me Talking.

"Would you like the red sweater or the green sweater?" asked the nurse, holding the two up in midair with her wand while cleaning the area around me.

"I think the green, Nurse. Doesn't it bring out my eyes?" I replied, causing her to smile. She handed me the sweater with the rest of my clothes and helped me to the washroom, where I quickly changed and tried to flatten my hair. As always, it bounced back to its usual position, causing me to sigh and go back to my bed to put on my shoes.

Speaking honestly, there were not many wizards or witches under the age of 18 that I had met here at Hogwarts. Besides Signature and Draco, the only other students who yelled in my face while I was resting were a few first years with Anxiety or Down Syndrome. It was always the same introduction: Name, Illness, the Stability of the Illness. It was rather cyclical…but maybe this was just how I was being introduced to, being this apparently well-known person in the wizarding world, metaphorically chained to my bed. Maybe that wasn't what it was actually like when going to Hogwarts and attending all the classes like all the others students who weren't physically incapacitated by their illness.

Something about understanding that Dumbledore was at Hogwarts, however, made Voldemort stay frozen. For this period of time, these glorious 15 minutes since the Headmaster had come to speak with me, it was like I wasn't even sick at all. I made a mental note to eventually figure out why that was, but for the time being, I merely basked in the endless warmth of not wanting to throw up every few minutes.

As I walked out of the wing, I waved goodbye to the nurses and tried to recall the way to the Great Hall. The first night I had arrived here, Hagrid had given me a brief tour of the giant castle before ushering me to the nearest wall, upon which I had to lean when my head began to hurt with such a ceaseless ferocity that I thought might cause it to explode. A few minutes later, I was being carried to the cancer wing and placed in the first empty bed, a bed that I hadn't left since, with the exception of going to the washroom. I prayed that I would happen upon a map.

After a series of turns I probably wouldn't remember on the way back to the ring, I began to hear the banging of plates and the echo of voices, and followed that noise until I came upon a staircase, at the top of which were two large wooden doors, now ajar, with light streaming onto the cold marble of the steps I was now climbing. With Voldemort virtually non-existent, I felt like a regular teenager, without having to struggle up the stairs and continually gasp for air. Before entering the Great Hall, I said a silent prayer to the parents i had never quite met, asking for their help and guidance for whatever came next…remembering that once, so many years ago, the two individuals that would eventually meet and decide to have me, The Survivor, both stood in the same spot as me, climbing the same steps and me and maybe even feeling the same nervousness that I felt right now. I wonder if they had any idea at all of what had been growing in their head, ready to strike at any given moment. I wondered, for the potential millionth time, if there could have been any way to save them.

The room was otherworldly. The four tables and one head table, where the teachers and staff sat, were lined with any dinner food imaginable, with mountains of each option constantly refilling themselves when they had begun to run short. Each table had a sampling of students bearing the same colour on their tie, with the colours being green, blue, red, and yellow from my vantage point at the front of the room. I looked down at the green sweater and felt the sudden urge to run out of the room, right back to the comfort of my hospital bed, knowing that I was probably going to have to be at one of those tables. Also, knowing that I had no idea which table to go to…and so, there I stood for a good 30 seconds, staring at the floor until an older witch came and began to speak.

"Harry Potter, isn't it?" she said, looking down at me sharply. She seemed to me, at least, to be the kind of no-nonsense person that I would inevitably piss off at some point during my time here, incurable brain tumour or not.

"Yes, ma'am," I replied, trying to meet her gaze with some semblance of confidence.

"It's Professor McGonagall, to you, Mr. Potter," she said, "I'll have to ask you to follow me, if you please."

She guided me to the front of the Hall, where I caught a quick glance of some of the staff. I only saw Hagrid, who smiled kindly at me, and a hook-nosed professor that made my scar briefly throb before I was sat down on a wooden stool, next to an ancient-looking witch's hat. I looked up at Professor McGonagall with a confused expression and she, while ignoring me, put her wand to her throat and began to speak:

"Students, may I have your attention please," she said, her voice magically projecting throughout the Hall. "As you all know, I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration professor here at Hogwarts. To my right, I have Mr. Harry Potter. He's new here. I will now quickly sort him so that we can carry on eating."

She placed the hat on my head. For some reason, despite how old the hat probably was, no dust floated off of it when it was put on my head, already giving me the inclination that this hat carried magical properties. (Can you blame me? I was still getting to used to this).

A voice began to speak in my head: "Well, well, well, Harry Potter…son to Lily and James Potter, two Gryffindors…you didn't know that? Yes, boy, I can hear what you're thinking, and I can sense something evil is inside of you…but with that evil comes great potential…a brain tumour? Voldemort? touched by something of such an evil magnitude that not even I, in all my years, can explain it...oh, the things that Slytherin could do with you," he said, and I glanced to the house with a green banner that bore an image of a snake on it, and in that sea of green I saw Draco, and I begged the voice in my head to give me Gryffindor.

"Gryffindor, eh? But there's so much potential for greatness here, Harry…in Slytherin…you do have a brave heart, though, Harry…you have endured a lot these past 15 years…yes, yes…I think i'll go with…" and the voice, leaving my head, yelled into the Hall, "GRYFFINDOR!"

For the first time, I looked into the crowd. What was once an ocean of silent faces turned into a clapping, cheering group of students, with the clapping being especially pronounced in the red house. I moved as fast as I could to sit at the first available seat on a bench at the red house, mortified, and the hat and stool vanished while Professor McGonagall sat down.

I looked in the direction of the sky I couldn't see, blocked by a beautiful night sky magically placed their probably by the professors, and briefly smiled. I swallowed while I surveyed the options of food before me, placing a few potatoes in my plate to test how strong my stomach was. It seemed to be fine, as Voldemort still seemed to have taken a leave of absence.

"Your scar isn't as pronounced as the books say it is," says the voice of a girl directly in front of me. I look up to find a beautiful girl, probably the same age as me, curiously gazing at my forehead. I patted my hair down once more in frustration, even though the whole school had just watched me sit on a stool for a few minutes and covering up the scar wouldn't change the fact that they now knew what I looked like.

"Hi to you too," I said, silently cursing myself. _You're supposed to be trying to make friends,_ I said in my head.

She immediately looked down, mumbling an apology, but then looked up again and said, "Actually, I don't have anything to be sorry about. I was just make an observation based on empirical evidence that was recorded in a book."

"I'm sorry. I'm Harry, like she said," I replied, pointing towards McGonagall. "It's just been an exhausting day. And you are?"

"Hermione Granger," she said, extending her hand over the pile of chicken wings. I lightly shook it.

"Hello, Hermione. How's your day been?"

"It's been okay," she replied. "I do love the classes, have you been to any yet?"

The redhead beside her immediately turned to look at her, staring at her with his mouth full of food. "You meet Harry Potter and the first thing you ask him is if he's been to CLASSES?"

"Why yes, Ronald, I'm curious to see if he's been enjoying himself here? You know, with the thing?" she said, widening her eyes for emphasis, as though I had no clue what they were talking about.

"Hermione, he's fine. He's eating," he said, peering at my plate, "I mean, even if it is just rabbit food. Wait, I'm sorry…I'm Ron, mate."

"I mean, I haven't been able to eat anything solid for a few years now, so potatoes are a luxury," I chuckled.

He laughed. "I would shake your hand, but it's covered in barbecue sauce," he said, "How's old Voldemort?"

I looked at him, open-mouthed. How'd he know the name of my tumour?

"RONALD!" Hermione yelled, slapping him on the forearm, "YOU DON'T JUST ASK SOMEONE HOW THEIR TUMOUR IS."

"It's okay, it's fine," I said, "Although, how'd you know what I called my tumour? I thought no one knew that."

"Of course we do," he replied, talking around a mouthful of chicken, "that tumour has killed so many people in the wizarding world, so we all call it Voldemort…it means like…escaping death? Fleeing death? Hermione, what does it mean?"

"Flight of death, Ronald," she sighed, taking a bite of toast, "He can be a bit thick sometimes."

I thought back to the time that I had first discovered what to call my tumour, during one of my initial hospital visits that I could remember. I was sitting in a bed with a tube in my arm, slightly dozing off while I waited for the nurse to come back with the medication I needed. As I fell asleep, I dreamed of being a baby once more, in my crib, looking through the bars at my mother. She was crouched down, face light up in happiness, but already there was an air of sickness about her, with dark eye bags and slightly yellowish skin. She kept whispering, "It can't hurt you, Voldemort can't hurt you," to me up until her last moments, when she grabbed my little hand and said something inaudible amongst the screaming of the Medi-Wizards, trying to restart my dad's heart, and then she dropped dead.

"Harry, did you hear me?" said Hermione. I looked up to see her and Ron watching me cautiously.

"No, d'you mind repeating that?"

"Sure," she said, "Ron and I wanted to know if you've gone around the school yet…if not, I mean, if you'd like we could go with you."

"I'dlovethat," I said, trying not to sound too excited, "also, if you don't mind me asking…what conditions do you both have? In the cancer wing people used to introduce themselves by their illnesses."

She looked at her hands, then back at me. "I'm depressed," she frowned, looking at Ron. He squeezed her hand lightly and said, "And I'm Bipolar."

I looked at the pair of them. I looked past their illnesses for the briefest of seconds, understanding that their illnesses were a part of them, and thought of a world where we were all okay, and the villains were real and not inside of us but outside, where they could be defeated. I thought of how bright our futures would be.

"Well, I have Cancer…but you already know," I said.

"Ya, she especially does. She reads all the time," Ron said, nudging Hermione.

"And I daresay he's never picked up a book before," she said, reaching for the butter.

And I don't know what it was about that moment, but before I heard whatever came out of Hermione's mouth next, I felt a powerful burning on my forehead, and I quickly grabbed my scar. Her eyes widened as she and Ron stood up, came around the table while drawing as little attention as possible, and walking with me outside of the Hall. While I was leaning against a wall, none other than Signature Helms' voice echoed clearly throughout the hallway we were standing in, and I reached for the nearest garbage receptacle and vomited.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS FEATURED WITHIN THIS TEXT BELONG TO THE AUTHOR J.K. ROWLING, AS WELL AS ANY REFERENCES TO LOCATIONS USED IN THE BOOKS OR BASICALLY ANYTHING IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES/SPINOFFS IS NOT MINE. What belongs to me, exclusively, is the writing and the idea. Judge it at your discretion (please don't be harsh).

ALSO, this is a work of fiction…the illnesses depicted are indeed real conditions that people courageously suffer with every day, who'ver the way that things play out with these illnesses has to relate to some aspects of the plot in Harry Potter.

Chapter 3: That Was the Moment We Met.

***important note*** this chapter will not be told from Harry's perspective. This is one of many digressions where I speak of the character's personal developments of their illnesses. They have been well-researched.***

I pulled the comb through my hair, wincing as the many tangles got stuck inside the teeth of the brush. As opposed to struggling with the mess, I settled on keeping it the way it was and sitting down on the window sill of the Hogwarts bathroom, sighing as I looked out the window, to the floor and finally to my hands.

I flipped my palms over so that it wasn't my knuckles facing me but my palms, cold and clammy and real. I watched as the lines of my hands branched off in every direction, wondering if they meant anything like Divination said they did. I put my head in them, squeezing my eyes shut and remaining there, still and silent, until just before my absence would be concerning and headed back to class.

I knew I was intelligent. I knew my grades were no ordinary grades, and I knew that I had determination and drive and whatever other words my Professor's used to surmise who they thought I was on every test paper and essay, on assignments and quizzes. But the sharper my brain gets, the deeper it cuts me: I had such a deep want to just not really exist anymore that it was eventually enough for me to tell my parents, who blamed themselves, which made me wish I hadn't said anything and such was the past four or so years. Because I didn't want to be depressed. The thing about Hogwarts was that you had to have a genuine mental or physical illnesses to be consider for entrance, and it is not atypical to get better while at Hogwarts but entrance depends on one nonetheless. And when I knew that I was "magical" I treated that ability as a synonym for a cure, and it hurt so much more when I had to eventually come to terms with the fact that it wasn't. I haven't quite recovered since.

After returning to class, copying the notes from a friend of mine and heading back to the Common Room as it was the end of the school day, I slumped into an armchair, opened up a book, and tried to read. But the same sentence kept repeating itself: _The proper way to perform the incantation is to move your wand through the air in this particular manner, as the movement of the wrist is essential in distinguishing this from the related spell, pictured below._ I stared at the picture hopelessly, thinking about how much more incrementally helpless and hopeless I was feeling with the passing days, with an intensity that only seemed to strengthen as I grew older.

I remember the first day of mine at Hogwarts like it was yesterday. My parents had dropped me off at the train station, reminding me to write as often as possible and making me promise to work _with_ the nurses and not _against_ them. I had nodded begrudgingly, barely listening. I was trying to be excited, but couldn't. I was trying to remind myself that this was a big step for me, but I didn't want anything good to happen to me. A part of me hoped this was all a practical joke being played on me because I didn't feel like I deserved anything good, let alone something this good. And as detached as I had become from anything that had ever loved me, I still felt a part of me rip off and stay with my parents, with their tiffs and sad eyes, where I knew I was safe. The hardest part of that day was leaving them.

And I don't know, I mean, I couldn't tell you how I feel about the first person I had met at Hogwarts. Palest hair I'd ever seen, I think. And eyes as grey as my heart had been for so long. I think, well, yes, he was obnoxious. Absurdly wealthy and spoiled. But my heart did hurt for him, to see him the way he was. The depression I knew I had weighed me down like an anvil tied to my ankle, but at least I knew it was there. It was like he didn't know what he was up against. That was the one time I had ever concentrated on one thing enough to feel genuinely sorry for someone, to wish them the best, despite his nastiness and vulgarities. Because Draco Malfoy wasn't the worst guy or the best guy, but the inability to be either literally ate away at him until he looked, and probably felt, like nothing except a skeleton that longed for life.

Aside from that, I had problems with feeling things. Until I met Ron, I would swear I had no heart. I wasn't eating, which originally made my parents think I had Anorexia, but it was clear after seeing a doctor that I lacked the requisite obsession with calories and/or exercise, but there was definitely a disorder of sorts in the way that I refused to eat. Being at Hogwarts made it easier, and I could feel myself getting healthier, but is it bad of me to say that I didn't want to? I wanted to be able to stay like this, frozen, for all eternity. It was something solid. It was something definite. I know that this is a terrible way for me to think, but I feared what would be left of me without this dark thing I'd been holding onto for so long.

"Tell me, Hermione, what is it that made you originally start feeling this way?" asked Dr. Flitwick, leaning back in his chair.

I blanched. Averting my gaze, I said, "I'm not entirely sure, doctor. I think it may have been because both my parents worked and, being the alleged "smart kid" I never really had many friends growing up, so I was always alone. And that didn't feel that great."

"So do you maybe think what you're experiencing is prolonged loneliness?"

"Again, I'm not sure. That may have been the cause of it," I said, tucking my hair behind my ear, "but it is definitely not what I'm experiencing now."

"And why do you say that?" he asked.

"Because I know that people love me. I know that I'm valued and that I have friends now and that people want to get to know me and whatever. But I just…" I stared at the lines of my hands, running the tips of my fingers along them. I knew I couldn't lie to him. _You'd only be hurting yourself_ , I thought. _So what?_ I countered, but there was no reply. "I just don't believe that anyone could care for me as much as I care for them. I feel like I'm just annoying and kind of, just, I don't know, there? Like no one really needs me as much as I need them."

He made some notes on his pad, peering at me from above his glasses. "And what is your relationship with Mr. Draco Malfoy?"

I immediately snapped my head up, squinting at him. "What?"

"I mean to say, the nurses see the two of you often talking. To what may that be attributed to?" he asked.

I just looked at him. "I mean, when I first got here, doctor, we were certainly acquaintances at best, but since he's begun to get better he's become quite ruder. I can't stand to be in his presence, and when I do talk to him now, it's just to argue," I said, wincing at the conversation topic. "I didn't really know him before, but I do now."

"Mhm. And what about Mr. Ronald Weasley?" he said, smiling slightly. "Is he another quasi-acquaintance?"

"Ron? No," I said immediately, "he's more than that. He's my friend."

He made another note. "And how are you feeling about the arrival of the famous Harry Potter?"

"Harry? He seems much nicer than he's painted, and quite larger-than-life. But that's mainly because I've read about him extensively. I dunno. I think we could be friends," I said. _Like anyone would want to be friends with you,_ I thought, frowning.

Dr. Flitwick noticed. "And how about you, Hermione. How are you doing?"

"Me? I'm fine," I replied, far too quickly. I mentally cursed myself. "I mean, pretty much the same as always."

"Do you think that these conversations help?" he asked.

"No. But I know I need them and I know that eventually they will," I said, and I almost believed it. Almost.

He checked his watch, sitting up straighter and taking some more notes. It made me nervous. "One final question, Hermione. Do you think that Draco is genuinely a bad person, or are your disagreements a result of your short temper that we have discussed?"

I paused, carefully choosing my words. "I think that the most well-balanced person, magical or not, to exist on this earth could not possibly believe Draco to be an agreeable character. Is that satisfactory?"

He rose in his seat, adjusting his glasses. "Very much so. Thank you for your time, Miss. Granger. I'll see you next week."

"Thank you as well, doctor. Do I have to see the nurses on my way out?"

He shuffled some papers around on his desk. "As usual, Hermione."

I sighed, turning around and heaving the heavy oak door open, letting it fall softly closed behind me.

After seeing the nurses in the psychiatric ward, I headed to my favourite spot in the library. Although I had lost the passion I once had for reading, and reading now was done more out of obligation than desire, it was getting better. For now, I knew I needed to get out of the common room that was always packed with people, and instead be alone with my thoughts.

If it weren't for the curfew we had, I would probably stay there all night. Among the books and the history, among the ghosts that sometimes came to talk to me, I was certain I could live forever. Nothing played with my nerves here, in this quiet haven, and it was a better treatment than anything else I had experienced. When I was back at in the girl's bedroom, I couldn't sleep. I would often have to magically conceal my pronounced eyebags the next day due to exhaustion. But I could manage several hours in the library and for some reason, I think Doctor Flitwick knew because otherwise the librarian would have kicked me out.

I stayed there for what felt like a few minutes, walking in between the aisles and reading the book titles. And just when I thought that everything was somewhat alright, I came across the book, "Important Wizards of the Modern Age," where I had first come across Harry's name. I remembered how awkward I was the first time I had met him, how arrogant and rude I must have seemed. And I began to wonder if maybe I was the problem in the arguments between Draco and I, if I was A Problem In General, and I had to sit down. And I sat like that, seemingly still with a mind running a mile a minute with tears running down my cheeks until the librarian found me and I woke up in a hospital bed, counting the tiles on the ceiling and wishing I was dead.


End file.
